[2961] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: IETF building GAK into the PKI
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perry E. Metzger)
Tue Jul 14 16:55:23 1998
To: Steve Bellovin <smb@research.att.com>
cc: cryptography@c2.net
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 14 Jul 1998 14:53:42 EDT."
<199807141853.OAA24391@postal.research.att.com>
Reply-To: perry@piermont.com
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 16:35:28 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Steve Bellovin writes:
> > They want key recovery for DATA. Not for interactive communication.
>
> Perry, I keep seeing stories in the Wall Street Journal about
> brokerage firms -- in an attempt to comply with their perception of
> SEC regulations -- monitoring employee email via assorted automated
> systems. Might they be customers for communications key access?
This is actually the one area I've hit where some communications
interception is needed, but it is very limited.
I do a bunch of this stuff right now (the packages to do this sort of
monitoring are rather horrible right now, btw.) This is really all an
extension of the old line practice of recording conversations made by
traders to settle disputes and assure that information isn't lost. The
SEC is only a part of the reason you need this -- all trading and
brokerage lines are recorded so it is possible to determine exactly
what the counterparties said, and you need the same capability on
email.
Although you would think that the desire of the firms was to do key
recovery on every session key used by the traders and brokers, this is
actually not what you need at all, since it doesn't get you things
like customer replies. What is really wanted is a second copy of all
their electronic mail both to and from their customers. The most
convenient way to do this is not the sort of corporate key recovery
people talk about that looks like the stuff in GAK systems. Among
other things, it has to be far more privacy intrusive than that (a
sole exception in the private sector to the rule...)
Luckily, it is only needed for the trading and brokerage staffs, and
only for their electronic mail. No one actually wants copies of some
administrative assistant's letters to his girlfriend, and no one wants
corporate access to the session keys used for things like the trader's
NFS transactions.
Perry
